Mumbai: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that the 5G telecom services will be introduced within the financial year 2022-2023. The minister in her union budget 2022 speech said that the auctions will be held in the next fiscal year (FY2022-23), after which private companies are expected to roll out the service.

The contracts for laying optical fibres will be done through public-private partnerships, Sitharaman further said.

The minister added that five per cent of the annual collections Universal Service Obligation Fund will be allocated to enable affordable broadband and mobile penetration in rural and remote areas.

Sitharaman also announced the inclusion of design-led initiatives for 5G and other technologies in the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.